Category talk:Monarchs of Spain (OTL)
Did Bloody Mary wear a Spanish crown matrimonial? Turtle Fan 00:31, January 21, 2011 (UTC) :No. She was Queen of Naples and Queen of Jerusalem; though the latter kingdom had been defunct for generations, King of Jerusalem was one of Charles V's many titles, and he apparently made a wedding gift of it. Turtle Fan 00:37, January 21, 2011 (UTC) ::That was nice(?) of him. TR 01:25, January 21, 2011 (UTC) :::I think he always felt guilty about not doing more on her behalf after her father banished her mother to the hinterland. :::Actually, he was engaged to her himself for a while there. Thankfully, the engagement was called off before anything came of it. I know it was pure politics, but a 22-year-old man courting his 6-year-old first cousin? Her marriage to her first cousin's son is hardly any less distasteful, and if that's not enough she was almost granted a dispensation to marry Henry Fitzroy so Henry VIII could pretend he was passing the crown on through the patrilineal line. :::I'm always struck by the hypocrisy of the marriage codes of the time: They were obsessed with incest when it came to in-laws, such as Henry's marriage to Catherine when she had previously been married to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Procreation with in-laws won't do a damned thing to deteriorate the gene pool, but incest with blood relatives, which produces the results which have led to the taboo against the practice in the first place, was wide open. Turtle Fan 04:13, January 21, 2011 (UTC) :::Anyway, does the Queen of Naples qualify as a Monarch of Italy, or is that for monarchs of all of Italy? If not we should add Popes to the category, and maybe Roman Emperors, too. Turtle Fan 04:13, January 21, 2011 (UTC) ::::I'm pretty sure we took a loose approach to Italy, much the same as Germany, so she does qualify. TR 16:12, January 21, 2011 (UTC) Ferdinand and Isabella So as far as I can tell, the Spanish government's official position is that Carlos I was the first King of Spain. Even though the Spanish nation-state traces its origins to the marriage of his grandparents, the monarchy did not legally begin till a single heir inherited both of their titles in his own right. Each was recognized as the other's consort, but neither ruled all of Spain in their own right. When Isabella died, Ferdinand lost the Castillian crown matrimonial and only served as regent on behalf of their daughter Joanna (Charles's mother). According to Wikipedia, their arrangement was something known as a composite monarchy. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:33, January 30, 2015 (UTC) :From what I can tell, the present Spanish monarchy still counts back to throne of Castile, much as the German Emperors counted back to the Kings of Prussia or the UK monarchy counts back to the English monarchs. For example, the Queen Isabella who reigned from 1833 to 1868 was the first of her name after the unification of Spain. Nonetheless, she reigned as Isabella II. Similarly, the first Ferdinand after unification was Ferdinand VI (as Ferdinand II of Aragon was also Ferdinand V'' of Castile). :I think the best thing to do is add language to the category to include the period prior to unification. This would bring the category in line with some of our other broader monarchs categories, such as the Monarchs of Germany (Frederick II of Prussia and several German emperors) and Italy (Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and several kings of Sicily) categories. We could even broaden the category to include the Muslim states, which would add Abd ar-Rahman I in his capacity of Emir of Cordova, although I doubt we'd see many other Muslim rulers anytime soon. TR (talk) 05:57, January 30, 2015 (UTC) ::We have separate categories for Monarchs of Britain, Monarchs of England, and Monarchs of Scotland. (And while the British government does count monarchs going back many centuries before the Act of Union, and numbers them accordingly, ie Elizabeth ''II, it also takes the official position that Anne was the first monarch of Great Britain.) :::True, but that's a consequence of the fact that the differences between the English and Scots monarchies before James took the throne was addressed in a couple of HT's stories. They weren't major plot points, but they were points. If HT dabbled more in the Reconquista period, we might have e.g. "Monarchs of Castile" as a viable category. TR (talk) 05:41, January 31, 2015 (UTC) ::::Yeah, the Castillian and Aragonian Monarchs categories would be pretty anemic and their growth potential approaches zero. So it's not like the English and Scottish categories, though the fact that there are so many of each has had the happy side-effect of allowing us to be formally correct. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:29, February 1, 2015 (UTC) ::With the Germans, we call it German Monarchs rather than Monarchs of Germany. This makes it much more versatile. (Though come to think of it, it should arguably include Austrian emperors as well as any kings of Bavaria or Saxony or whatever, or even Grand Dukes of Luxembourg, that we might find ourselves writing articles on. We should also have the new HREs category in there; in fact I think I'll do that right now.) :::Yeah, we might want to be somewhat more specific for the Kaisers. Just a thought. I don't think we have any other monarchs/electors of any of the other German kingdoms. George III is our only Hanoverian. The Kaisers maintained title of "king of Prussia", so if we just wanted to give Frederick the Great some company, we could do that. TR (talk) 05:41, January 31, 2015 (UTC) ::::I think German Monarchs and the flexibility it allows us is great. We could possibly consider turning it into a supercat, with HREs, Emperors of Austria, German Emperors (with language indicating we mean the Kaisers specifically) and Kings of Prussia (Frederick plus the double-catting of all the Kaisers) and George III going directly into the supercategory. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:29, February 1, 2015 (UTC) ::The Italian category would seem to be in the same boat as this one. :::And only two monarchs of Italy post unification, and one of those is the fictional Umberto of ItPoME. ::::It's not as urgent over there, but changing it to Italian Monarchs would give it the broadness it needs to be formally correct while holding all its current contents. If we did that, we could also keep Popes and add HREs as subcats, though even if we did I still think Popes belongs in the European supercat. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:29, February 1, 2015 (UTC) ::I do see we have Popes as a subcat there, and propose we move it to the European Monarchs parent category, if only because the Vatican has never been legally part of the modern Italian nation-state. :::I guess that makes sense. TR (talk) 05:41, January 31, 2015 (UTC) ::What I was thinking was changing the category's name to "Spanish Monarchs." A variation on that idea would be to create "Spanish Monarchs" for Ferdinand and Isabella, joined by Abd ar-Rahman and anyone else who might come along in the future, and keep everyone else in "Monarchs of Spain" which would become a sub-cat. But if we decide that that's more trouble than it's worth, inserting clarifying language in the description could possibly suffice. :::I vote against the move. Aside from Ferd and Izzy, the category contains monarchs who ruled post unification of modern Spain. Moving the whole thing just for two articles rankles. ::::I had similar feelings, and was torn. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:29, February 1, 2015 (UTC) :::However, I do see the virtue of creating the broader "Spanish Monarchs", and then sub-catting the "Monarchs of Spain" approach. It occurs to me that we could also apply a similar approach to other countries. Boudicca and Caratacus could be called "British Monarchs", although they certainly weren't monarchs of England, Scotland, or the UK. TR (talk) 05:41, January 31, 2015 (UTC) ::::It really would allow us to sidestep all kinds of issues if we applied it broadly. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:29, February 1, 2015 (UTC) ::At the same time, I'd like to propose creating a catch-all category for "Monarchs of Defunct States" to scoop up the various people who ruled kingdoms which no longer exist. I'm thinking we would limit it to places like Cordova and Sicily, which no longer have any national identity at all, rather than those that have gone republican, like France and Germany. Turtle Fan (talk) 21:28, January 30, 2015 (UTC) :::I like it. TR (talk) 05:41, January 31, 2015 (UTC) ::::I'll brainstorm up a list later on. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:29, February 1, 2015 (UTC)